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'Unnecessary care': Leaked video shows UnitedHealth chief defending company’s denials

After Brian Thompson — the CEO of health insurance titan UnitedHealthcare — was shot to death on a New York City sidewalk by a gunman who is still on the lam, the head of the company's parent organization was seen defending the company's business practices.

Journalist Ken Klippenstein posted to Bluesky on Friday that he had obtained a leaked video from an unnamed UnitedHealth employee of Andrew Witty, who is the CEO of UnitedHealth Group. He lauded Thompson as a great leader for the company, saying: "There are very few people in the history of the U. S. healthcare industry who had a bigger positive effect on American healthcare than Brian [Thompson]." He also appeared to stand up for the company's 32% claim denial rate, which LendingTree's ValuePenguin found is twice the industry average of 16%.

"And we are going to make sure that we not only acknowledge and honor that legacy of Brian, but we'll continue it," he added. "Our role is a critical role. And we make sure that care is safe, appropriate and it's delivered when people need it. We guard against the pressures that exist for unsafe care, or for unnecessary care."

The company has been under fire recently, after being accused in a lawsuit of using an AI called "nH Predict" to automatically deny claims filed by elderly patients, even though it had a 90% error rate. Tech publication Arstechnica noted that the company is alleged to have viewed the 90% error rate as a "feature, not a bug."

"I would have been happy to send my condolences after the UnitedHealthcare CEO was killed this afternoon, however unfortunately sympathy requires a prior authorization and I have to deny that request," one TikTok user said in a viral response to Thompson's death.

UnitedHealthcare's denials have become a key source of anger toward the heath insurance industry at large in the wake of Thompson's assassination early Wednesday morning. CNN reported that there's been a "bubbling up of pent up anger" at the industry's pattern of denying critical healthcare procedures while posting record profits. And so far, the NYPD's efforts to enlist the general public in tracking down the shooter have proved mostly fruitless.

"[Americans] don’t really empathize with who the victim is in this scenario," Sukrit Venkatagiri, an assistant professor of computer science at Swarthmore College, told NBC News.

Watch the video of Witty below, or by clicking this link.

United CEO Andrew Witty gave an address to the company today (leaked to me), telling employees "we guard against...unnecessary care" and that "There are very few people in the history of the U. S. healthcare industry who had a bigger positive effect on American healthcare than Brian [Thompson]."

[image or embed]
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein.bsky.social) December 6, 2024 at 8:03 PM

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'People don’t care': Popular internet sleuths deny NYPD’s request to track down CEO shooter

The New York Police Department (NYPD) is crowd-sourcing their investigation into the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson to the general public after two days with no positive ID on the shooter. But they may not get much help from the internet, according to multiple popular TikTok sleuths.

NBC News reported that law enforcement is banking on the American public helping them identify the man seen in new photos released this week, which show the alleged assassin lowering his mask while flirting with a hostel concierge. Those are currently the only photos of the alleged killer in which his mask isn't concealing his face, and law enforcement veterans have called them a "turning point" in the investigation.

But Savannah Sparks — who has 1.3 million TikTok followers and is known for helping track down perpetrators of racist and hateful attacks — was unequivocal in her refusal to help find Thompson's murderer. Thompson told NBC she was "pretty apathetic" about the ongoing manhunt, and that her impression of the online sleuthing community's current mood was: "[C]oncepts of thoughts and prayers."

"It’s, you know, claim denied on my prayers there," Sparks said, with a tongue-in-cheek reference to health insurance industry lingo.

According to NBC, Sparks (who holds a doctorate of pharmacy and works in the healthcare industry as a lactation consultant) has been called on by law enforcement in the past to assist with training officers on how to track down suspects online. But she said that in this particular case, she has zero interest in helping the NYPD.

"Absolutely the f— not," she said.

Michael McWhorter, who is "TizzyEnt" on TikTok and has more than 6.7 million followers, observed that he hadn't seen the same drumbeat from the public to find Thompson's killer that he's seen in past cases involving "blatant violence." He opined that investigators may be underestimating "how much people don’t care." And Swarthmore College assistant professor of computer science Sukrit Venkatagiri said it's possible that some internet sleuths "don’t really empathize with who the victim is in this scenario."

"People are less motivated, from an altruistic perspective, to help this victim in this specific case," he said, noting that the victim in question was the multimillion-dollar CEO of a Fortune 500 health insurance company.

One person who helped police was software engineer Riley Walz, who obtained data from the Citibike station used by the alleged shooter after the murder. Some social media users called him a "snitch," according to NBC. McWhorter said those who help police being ganged up on could discourage others from helping to identify the shooter. But he said it's possible that apathy could play a larger role.

"There’s this weird thing, this vibe of like, I don’t see a bunch of people just feeling an urgency," he said.

Click here to read NBC's report in its entirety.

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'The volume’s getting turned up': J6 defendants expecting Trump pardons get unruly in court

Participants in the deadly siege of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 have reportedly become emboldened since the 2024 election given their expectations of being pardoned by President-elect Donald Trump.

According to a Friday article in Politico, several defendants being prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have been acting out in court proceedings during the lame-duck period between outgoing President Joe Biden's administration and Trump's inauguration. One of those defendants is Guy Reffitt, a Texas man who brought a gun to the insurrection. Politico's Kyle Cheney reported that Reffitt criticized Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, claiming his treatment was "bulls—."

Reffitt said he had been "in [his] feelings" since 2021, when he was first imprisoned in the Washington, D.C. jail. He added that now that Trump is about to enter the White House, he's "out of my feelings." Friedrich, who re-sentenced Reffitt to seven years, responded: “No one has a problem with your feelings. It’s the actions you took with your feelings.”

Other judges are also contending with the rowdiness of January 6 rioters. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, said during a sentencing hearing for a member of the Proud Boys gang that breaking past Capitol Police barricades “at the direction of a disappointed candidate” was “the definition of tyranny and authoritarianism.”

"The volume’s getting turned up," Jackson said on Friday.

Trump has previously referred to January 6 defendants as "hostages," which is a label Judge Jackson has pushed back against, though simultaneously doing so carefully and not mentioning the incoming president by name. Many of the defendants Trump has called for pardoning are in jail for assaulting police officers — including both defendants who were convicted by a jury, and defendants who pleaded guilty of their own volition.

Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn called Trump's proposed pardons a "slap in the face" last month, given that hundreds of officers were injured defending the Capitol with others, like Officer Brian Sicknick, dying in the days following the attack. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said during a Friday sentencing hearing that he fears Americans have "largely shunted aside" the actions that law enforcement took to protect the Capitol.

Click here to read Politico's report in full.

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'Quickly get into problems': These 3 obstacles could slow down Trump’s mass deportations

Stephen Miller, who is the top immigration advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, has pledged that the incoming administration will begin its promised mass deportation campaign at "light speed" shortly after Trump's inauguration. But there are several significant legal impediments that could frustrate those deportations.

The Washington Post reported Friday that Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will have some difficulty deporting at least of the roughly 1.4 million undocumented immigrants currently in the deportation queue next year. This includes those immigrants' home countries refusing to take them, immigrants serving prison terms and other immigrants getting reprieves from judges due to medical conditions or other factors.

Those obstacles could be just the beginning of the second Trump administration's headaches in enacting its deportation agenda, as other unforeseen logistical barriers could tie up ICE agents in myriad other ways. One example is the military planes that ICE would rely on to fly migrants out of the country being unavailable due to aircraft already being committed elsewhere.

“If you start using those planes for deportations, you quickly get into problems with military force readiness," an unnamed retired ICE official told the Post. “It’s the same contractors who are flying our service members to the Middle East or to Germany.”

Tom Homan, who the president-elect has tapped as his incoming border czar, is tasked with heading up his deportation agenda. He's promised that any undocumented immigrant that an immigration judge has cleared for deportation should be deported, regardless of whether they've committed a crime.

“If those orders aren’t executed or carried out, then what the hell are we doing?” Homan said in November. “Nothing in immigration law says you need to commit a very serious criminal offense to be removed from the country.”

Should Trump succeed in his stated goal of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, it could inadvertently create a new financial headache for taxpayers. Journalist David Cay Johnston pointed out last month that any undocumented immigrant who has had a child since arriving in the United States would be separated from their children if deported, as their children are U.S. citizens. He then observed that foster care systems in multiple states could be overwhelmed, leading to significant property tax increases down the road.

Click here to read the Post's full report (subscription required).

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'Pent up anger' at health insurance industry explodes on social media after CEO shooting

After UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered outside of his Midtown Manhattan hotel earlier this week by a gunman who is still at large, a larger conversation has erupted on social media about the health insurance industry's business practices.

CNN reported Friday that there is a "flood of frustration" online in which people are using Thompson's death as a jump-off point to rip large health insurance companies over frivolous claim denials of necessary healthcare procedures. One TikTok user said she would have been "happy to send my condolences after the UnitedHealthcare CEO was killed this afternoon, however unfortunately sympathy requires a prior authorization and I have to deny that request."

"They also denied my son his AFOs — ankle foot orthotics — because he did have a stroke. So half of his body doesn't work the same as the other half, and he needs those to walk," another TikTok user said. "They denied him, because he grew too fast. They said: 'He just had some five months ago!' I was like: "Yeah. And then he grew, because he was two years old. And two year olds tend to do that."

The still-unknown assassin reportedly wrote the words "delay," "deny" and "depose" on shell casings found at the scene of the shooting, which is a play on the slogan popular among health insurance industry professionals — "delay, deny and defend." This suggests the gunman may have been motivated by a claim denial that directly impacted him personally or a close friend or family member.

CNN reporter Clare Duffy noted that while "there is no justification for this kind of violence," she acknowledged that Thompson's death has still exposed a "bubbling up of pent-up anger and frustration and distrust that Americans feel toward the health insurance industry." She mentioned that a Facebook post by UnitedHealth's official page about Thompson's death garnered tens of thousands of reactions, "and the majority of those were laughing-face emojis."

Duffy further reported that in one study, 58% of Americans reported that they had experienced problems with their own health insurance, including claim denials. And 15% of those who experienced denials say they experienced a decline in their health as a result of those denials. And she mentioned that a lawsuit filed last year against UnitedHealth accused the company of using artificial intelligence to deny claims filed by elderly patients, even though it had a 90% error rate.

Watch the CNN segment below, or by clicking this link.

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'Flagrantly unlawful': Experts demolish Trump’s plan of bypassing Senate to confirm Cabinet

President-elect Donald Trump has floated the idea of a scheme to allow for "recess appointments" of his Cabinet. But several legal experts are pointing out that this would run afoul of the Constitution in a major way.

As the Associated Press reported in November, Trump is considering asking Republican leaders of both the House and the Senate to adjourn after he is inaugurated in order him to appoint the bulk of his Cabinet in one fell swoop, essentially bypassing the confirmation process. Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has notably not taken recess appointments off the table.

But in a Friday article for the Atlantic, Yale University law professor Akhil Reed Amar, Georgetown University law professor Josh Chafetz and Columbia Law School Thomas Schmidt revealed how Trump's controversial plan is contradictory to the most foundational elements of the American system. They pointed out that "there is simply no way to do this consistent with the text, history and structure of the Constitution.

In 2020, Trump previously threatened recess appointments when Democrats gummed up the works of the Senate. And he has even weighed the option of a provision in the Constitution that allows a president to force Congress into recess by declaring them to both be in disagreement on adjournment – something that Amar, Chafetz and Schmidt say has "never been used in all of American history."

"The House Republicans’ idea seems to be to manufacture a 'disagreement' to trigger this adjournment power. First, the House of Representatives would pass a resolution calling for a recess. The Senate would then (in all likelihood) refuse to pass the resolution. Trump would then declare the houses to be in 'disagreement' and adjourn both houses for as long as he likes," the authors explained. "From there, he would start his recess-appointments spree. There is just one glaring problem: The 'disagreement' in this scenario is illusory."

The House GOP has also toyed with the idea of Trump sending the Senate home against its will and confirm all of his Cabinet nominees during the artificial "recess," which the authors called "flagrantly unlawful." Trump reportedly considered doing this in his first term.

Several of Trump's Cabinet nominees — like Defense Secretary-designate Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence-designate Tulsi Gabbard and Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — have proved controversial even for the incoming Republican Senate majority. Republicans will have 53 seats, meaning Trump's Cabinet picks can only afford three defections in order to be confirmed. A petition calling on senators to stop Trump's most controversial Cabinet picks has accumulated nearly 55,000 signatures as of Friday.

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Insurance giant abruptly nixes 'egregious' anesthesia cap after UnitedHealth CEO’s murder

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) is quickly backtracking on a previously announced policy of not paying for anesthesia just 24 hours after it announced the policy.

On Wednesday, the health insurer announced that plans for customers in Connecticut, Missouri and New York would no longer cover anesthesia if surgeries went beyond an arbitrary time limit starting in February of 2025. Dr. Donald E. Arnold of the American Society of Anesthesiologists condemned the move, saying it was "just the latest in a long line of appalling behavior by commercial health insurers looking to drive their profits up at the expense of patients and physicians providing essential care."

"It’s a cynical money grab by Anthem, designed to take advantage of the commitment anesthesiologists make thousands of times each day to provide their patients with expert, complete and safe anesthesia care," he said. "This egregious policy breaks the trust between Anthem and its policyholders who expect their health insurer to pay physicians for the entirety of the care they need."

"[A]s someone who was once under anesthesia for nine hours: f— these people," journalist Marisa Kabas wrote on Bluesky.

Now, the insurance giant is abruptly reversing course. Hartford, Connecticut CBS affiliate WFSB reported that Blue Cross Blue Shield would in fact pay for full anesthesia coverage in the Nutmeg State. New York Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul also announced Thursday that Anthem "will be announcing a full reversal of this misguided policy" after her administration pushed the company to back down.

Anthem's decision notably came a day after UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson was shot to death by an unknown assassin early Wednesday morning outside of his Midtown Manhattan hotel. The gunman — who is still at large — wrote the words "delay" and "depose" on shell casings found at the scene, which suggest the assailant may have been motivated by UnitedHealth's industry-leading denial rate for insurance claims.

As LendingTree's ValuePenguin noted, UnitedHealth denies roughly 32% of claims, which is twice the industry average of 16%. Arstechnica reported in late 2023 that it used an AI with a 90% error rate to automatically deny claims called nH Predict, which is reportedly still in use.

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George 'Santos Claus' hands out treats in red suit and fake beard at GOP rep’s office

Former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) was at the United States Capitol today despite being expelled in 2023 — but disguised as Santa Claus for a House Republican's holiday party.

Politico congressional reporter Olivia Beavers tweeted Thursday that Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) hinted that his office would get a visit from "Santos Claus" on Thursday afternoon, and the expelled New York Republican later made an appearance in a red suit and a fake beard.

Beavers noted that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) promptly disappeared almost as soon as Santos' pending appearance was announced. She posted photos of Burchett and Santos posing together with a tray of crackers and Easy Cheese, with the speaker nowhere in sight.

Santos became the first sitting member of the House of Representatives to get expelled in more than 20 years in December of 2023. The vote to remove him from Congress was lopsided, with 311 voting in favor and only 114 opposed. His removal resulted in Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) being elected to serve out the remainder of Santos' term in a February 2024 special election. Suozzi was reelected to a full two-year term in November.

The bipartisan effort to expel Santos came after a damning House Committee on Ethics report in which the freshman New Yorker was found to have improperly spent campaign money on frivolous purchases. This reportedly included designer handbags and even online adult content subscriptions. Santos announced he wasn't running for reelection, but later said in a Twitter Spaces audio segment that his reported offenses were far from the worst he had allegedly seen from his colleagues in Congress.

"I have colleagues who are more worried about getting drunk every night with the next lobbyists they're going to screw and pretend like none of us know what's going on and sell off the American people," he said. "Not show up to vote because they're too hung over or whatever the reason is, or not show up to vote at all and just give their card out like f—ing candy for someone else to vote for them. This s— happens every single week... These members behave abominably."

Santos pleaded guilty in August to federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He's due to be sentenced in February, and could serve up to 22 years in prison. He has agreed to pay restitution of approximately $373,000.

Click here to view Olivia Beavers' photos of Santos at Burchett's party.

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Watch: Top GOP state senator urinates on himself during DUI hit-and-run arrest

One high-ranking Republican state senator from Tennessee was recently arrested for allegedly driving under the influence while on vacation in Jekyll Island, Georgia.

On Thursday, Newsweek reported that Yager, who is chairman of the Tennessee Senate Republican Caucus, was pulled over in his Ford Edge by Georgia State Patrol troopers on Tuesday. In the video of his field sobriety test, Yager — who is 77 years old — is seen having difficulty standing, and a stream of liquid is seen spreading across the front of his khaki pants in the process. Earlier that day, a Ford Edge fitting the description of Yager's vehicle was reportedly involved in a hit-and-run accident.

Yager was booked on charges of hit and run; duty of driver to stop or return to scene of accident, failure to stop at a stop sign and DUI less safe driver. The Tennessee Lookout reported that Yager was released after posting a bond of $2,117.

"An unfortunate incident happened last night," Yager said in a public statement. "On the advice of my attorney, I cannot discuss the particulars at this time. I am and will continue to cooperate fully with authorities to bring this incident to an appropriate conclusion."

Yager, who was first elected to the state senate in 2008, previously served as Roane County Executive for 20 years between 1986 and 2006. He was recently reelected to another four-year term in November, handily defeating independent Charles Hutson II with 85.6% of the vote. He ran unopposed in 2012, 2016 and 2020 according to Ballotpedia.

Watch the video of Yager's field sobriety test below, or by clicking this link:

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'Turning point': New photos released of alleged shooter in health insurance CEO’s slaying

The New York Police Department (NYPD) has released two new photos of the shooter allegedly responsible for the murder of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan earlier this week.

On Thursday, MSNBC vice president of editorial and booking Jesse Rodriguez tweeted the photos, which show the alleged gunman with his mask down at the check-in desk of a youth hostel in Manhattan's Upper West Side. In one photo, the alleged shooter is seen smiling from the side, and in the other photo he is looking forward. While the photos show him wearing the same coat, he is only wearing the backpack he had on during the shooting of Thompson in the right-hand photo.

In an interview with CNN host Pamela Brown, John Miller — the network's chief law enforcement analyst — said the photos represent a "turning point" in the investigation as they reveal the face of "the man behind the mask." Miller noted that the alleged killer stayed in a room with two other men on Tuesday and Wednesday, which seemed to dispel theories that the man was a native New Yorker.

"He kept the jacket on and the hood up and the mask up almost at all times, according to people in that hostel. But there was this moment at the front desk in the lobby when the mask came down, and you see that smile," Miller said. "It's an image that, if you knew him — a coworker, a friend, a family member — you would say, 'that's so-and-so."

Video of the shooting shows the gunman using a pistol with a silencer to shoot Thompson in the back outside of the Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan early Wednesday morning. At one point, the gun jammed, though the shooter was seen calmly fixing the weapon before firing again as Thompson fell on the sidewalk. Investigators say the shooter wrote the words "delay," "deny" and "depose" on shell casings left at the scene. This is assumed to be a reference to the health insurance industry's slogan: "Delay, deny and defend."

This may suggest a motive behind the shooting. UnitedHealth leads the health insurance industry in claim denials at 32%, which is twice the industry average of 16%. In 2023, Arstechnica reported that UnitedHealth used artificial intelligence with an error rate of approximately 90% to issue denials.

After the murder, the alleged shooter fled the murder scene through an alley, then rode a Citibike to Central Park. He remains at large, and Miller said the NYPD was essentially "crowdsourcing" the investigation to enlist the help of the general public in identifying the person seen on the hostel's surveillance camera.

Watch the video of Miller's analysis below, or by clicking this link.

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'I’ll do my show the way I want!' Scarborough opens with meltdown over David Frum comments

Joe Scarborough — the former Republican congressman-turned MSNBC morning host — opened Thursday's episode of "Morning Joe" with an indignant 20-minute monologue.

According to Mediaite, Scarborough's rant was in response to an article in the Atlantic written by former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, who was booted from Wednesday's show after a comment he made about Defense Secretary-designate Pete Hegseth. Frum was asked to leave the show after commenting on an NBC News report in which Hegseth's current and former colleagues at Fox News recalled him frequently showing up on set complaining of hangovers and reeking of alcohol. Frum said: "If you're too drunk for Fox News, you're very, very drunk indeed."

As Frum recalled in his Atlantic essay, a producer warned Frum to not repeat his comments during a commercial break. Frum "said something noncommittal" in response, and "got another round of warning." He was eventually "excused from the studio chair," and Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski read an on-air apology for Frum's "flippant" comment about Hegseth.

The former Bush White House speechwriter suggested in his essay that Scarborough and Brzezinski were "feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease" in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's threats of retribution. He also referenced their November visit to Mar-a-Lago in an attempt to "mend fences" with the incoming administration.

"I do not write to scold anyone; I write because fear is infectious. Let it spread, and it will paralyze us all," Frum wrote. "The only antidote is courage. And that’s infectious, too."

Scarborough didn't take kindly to Frum's essay, and vehemently denied that he and his spouse/co-host were acting out of "fear." He also defended he and Brzezinski's trip to Mar-a-Lago, which led to a plummet in viewership.

"Guess what? This is what’s been going on now for several weeks. We went down to talk to the president-elect. And people wrote articles that were just false. But you know what we did? We did the corporate thing. Corporate said, ‘don’t say anything. Just keep your head down.’ What did the royal say? 'Never explain, never complain. We did that,'" he said. "I always have Republicans say, ‘Oh, they’re telling you exactly what to say.’ No! Nobody’s once told me what to say here. Well actually, one person did one time. One leader did one time. I said ‘I’ll tell you what, if you think you can do such a damn good job, why don’t you come here and do the show four hours a day? I’m fine quitting. But I’m gonna do my show. I’ll do my show the way I want to do my show!"

Click here to read Mediaite's coverage. You can watch Scarborough's monologue below, or by clicking this link.

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CEO’s murder provokes 'dark' humor in response to America’s 'dysfunctional healthcare system'

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, December 4, 2024, UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead by a masked gunman who remains at large. On social media, his murder was met not with an outpouring of mourning, but ridicule.

In an article published by Science publication Futurism, writer Victor Tangermann explored the "incredibly dark" responses to Thompson's killing on platforms like X and Bluesky. He noted that many of the responses were "gallows humor" that were both "simultaneously ghoulish" yet also "illustrative of America's profoundly dysfunctional medical system."

"Rotating Sandwiches" meme creator Lauren Walker wrote on Bluesky: "[A]ll human life is sacred, so it's not proper to laugh when serious harm befalls someone," she wrote. "[T]he moral thing to do is instead charge them hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"Our apologies, but bullet wounds are only covered under our platinum+ package," one user wrote in response.

Many of the memes circulating in response to Thompson's murder invoke the cold nature of the private health insurance industry, in which an insured's claim can be denied even if it's for filling a prescription for medication prescribed by their doctor or for treatment necessary to save someone's life. LendingTree's ValuePenguin wrote that UnitedHealth is the worst offender, denying roughly one-third of all in-network claims (32%), which is double the industry average of 16%.

UnitedHealth has also been accused in a lawsuit of using artificial intelligence (AI) to deny claims filed by Medicare Advantage patients. The plaintiffs claim that the company had knowledge that the AI it was using "had a high potential for error," and that UnitedHealth employees were pressured by supervisors to use the algorithm to issue denials. They were also reportedly told to keep patient stays within 1% of the length of stay predicted by the AI.

The New York Post recently reported that Thompson and several UnitedHealth executives were under investigation by the Department of Justice for alleged insider trading. Thompson and three others allegedly sold more than $101 million in shares before news of the investigation was announced, which resulted in the company's stock price declining. Thompson himself reportedly made $15 million on the sale.

Click here to read Futurism's article in its entirety.

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'Deeply concerned': Biden considering preemptive pardons for people Trump may target

Throughout the course of his third bid for the White House, President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly promised to use the full powers of the federal government to prosecute his political enemies. Now, President Joe Biden appears to be taking those threats seriously.

According to a Wednesday report by Politico's Jonathan Martin, Biden is now weighing preemptive pardons for several people Trump has directly targeted, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — who won California's U.S. Senate race in November — and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who was vice chair of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

Martin wrote that Biden was "deeply concerned" about the fate of the people Trump has singled out, particularly after the president-elect nominated Kash Patel to be the next potential FBI director. According to the Hill, Patel has referred to Schiff — who led Trump's first impeachment effort — as a "government gangster," and has accused Cheney of being "the main architect of this disinformation campaign."

"[Cheney] and her band of miscreants suppressed evidence that completely exonerates the Jan. 6 defendants from their ginned-up charge of insurrection," Patel wrote in a May email.

Biden is also reportedly weighing a pardon for Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Martin didn't name any other potential recipients of a preemptive pardon, but Patel is reportedly eyeing both Democrats and Republicans alike for prosecution, including former Attorney General Bill Barr, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and other former Trump White House staffers who later opposed him publicly, like Sarah Isgur Flores, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Stephanie Grisham.

"If it’s clear by January 19 that [revenge] is his intention, then I would recommend to President Biden that he provide those preemptive pardons to people, because that’s really what our country is going to need next year," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) told WGBH.

Journalist Eleanor Clift recently called on Biden to issue preemptive pardons for Cheney and Schiff, along with former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who also publicly opposed Trump during the 2024 election cycle. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly — who both called Trump a "fascist" — have also been recommended for pardons.

Click here to read Martin's full article for Politico in full.

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New York judge refuses to marry same-sex couple 'because of her religious beliefs': report

A civil judge in Syracuse, New York recently refused to officiate a wedding between two women, in an apparent violation of anti-discrimination laws.

That's according to a Wednesday article in the Syracuse Post-Standard, which reported that Judge Felicia Pitts Davis walked out of her chambers on November 16 as soon as a same-sex couple walked in. The couple — 33 year-old Shawntay Davis and 29 year-old Niccora Davis — were left alone in the chambers until another city court judge, Mary Anne Doherty, came in and officiated their wedding.

"The way [Pitts Davis] got up and left the courtroom was rude, then all of a sudden another judge came in, and that’s when we got married,” Shawntay Davis told the Post-Standard. “It was real weird.”

Pitts Davis had officiated a wedding of a heterosexual couple just prior to the Davises, and reportedly even cried during the ceremony. The Post-Standard cited two unnamed sources who said Pitts Davis told Doherty that she didn't want to marry the two women due to her "religious beliefs."

Syracuse city court spokesperson Al Baker told the paper that the court was "aware of the allegation and have referred the matter to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct." Pitts Davis was elected to her 10-year term in 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter uprising that swept the nation after former Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. She told the paper at the time that she recalled watching her mother work until she was almost 90 years old, and grew uo hearing stories about racial discrimination and lynchings.

"As a Black woman, what I’ve always been taught – what I’ve fought for – has relied on the protections of the Constitution, and I had to learn how to make those real," she said.

AlterNet has reached out to Pitts Davis' office for comment, and will update this article in the event of a response.

Click here to red the Post-Standard's article in its entirety.

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Here’s who Trump might pick for defense secretary if Hegseth withdraws

Fox News personality Pete Hegseth appears to be in an uphill battle to be confirmed as the next secretary of defense. Now, President-elect Donald Trump is considering several alternatives if his first choice doesn't pan out.

On Wednesday, ABC News senior White House correspondent Selina Wang tweeted that there are at least six Republican senators who "aren't behind" Trump's choice to oversee the Pentagon. This would sink Hegseth's confirmation, as any Cabinet nominee can only afford three Republican defections if they hope to be confirmed with Vice President-elect JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote (assuming all Democrats also vote no).

According to Wang, Trump may end up nominating a secretary of defense more in line with the Republican establishment if Hegseth withdraws his name from consideration. This includes two-term Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis (who ran against Trump in the 2024 Republican primary), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), who Trump has already picked as his National Security Advisor.

The Republican backlash to Hegseth has been slowly building as more reports come out about his alleged alcoholism and lingering questions about a 2020 sexual assault settlement. NBC News reported Wednesday that 10 of Hegseth's current and former coworkers at Fox News say he frequently showed up drunk on set for the Fox & Friends Weekend show that airs at 6 AM, reeked of alcohol and complained about hangovers. They added they Hegseth required colleagues to "babysit" him, including calling to wake him up so he wouldn't be late for work.

Hegseth's mother, Penelope, also wrote a lengthy email condemning his "abusive behavior" toward women while he was in the midst of a contentious divorce from his second wife, Samantha. The New York Times reported that the email — which Penelope Hegseth has since apologized for writing – described his behavior as "dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing [and] belittling." And she told him to not bother writing back, saying she expected him to "twist and abuse everything I say anyway."

In 2017, Hegseth was accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a Republican conference in California, who suspected he drugged her before the alleged assault. Hegseth maintained the encounter was consensual, though he paid her an undisclosed sum of money in 2020 after she filed a lawsuit, which required she sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Trump's appointments of both Hegseth as defense secretary-designate and Kash Patel as the potential next FBI director came as welcome news to Russia-1 host Vladimir Solyvyov. Daily Beast columnist Julia Davis posted the clip of Solyvyov saying the two would "quickly dismantle America," saying: "And the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah."

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'Our brand sucks': Dem reveals how party became 'a shell of itself' — and how to fix it

The Democratic Party not only lost control of the White House and the U.S. Senate in 2024, but also saw its advantage in traditional Democratic strongholds erode. One veteran Democratic operative is offering several explanations, and solutions for how to rebuild.

In an essay for the Bulwark, longtime Democratic campaign operative Steve Schale wrote that his party has now become "a shell of itself" in the wake of its 2024 loss. He specifically lamented that his home state of Florida has gone from a battleground state that Democrats carried in 2008 and 2012 to a Republican vote sink, with even the bluest counties trending increasingly Republican. He also pointed out that Iowa and Ohio have morphed from competitive swing states to safe GOP states since Barack Obama's presidency.

"That’s not just a canary in a coalmine. It is a massive boulder landing in front of you on the only road home," Schale wrote. "Even worse, my party has largely avoided reckoning with how big that boulder is. We can no longer do that or we will find ourselves in an even worse situation than we do following the 2024 election. Now is not the time for quick fixes. We must make real structural changes."

Schale argued that there are four ways Democrats can rebuild their party to once again have a 50-state presence. He proposed that Democrats should spend money earlier before voters' opinions can "harden" on contentious issues like crime, immigration, transgender rights and the economy. He called for more groups to be involved in helping candidates and campaigns make decisions, as opposed to one super PAC or group serving as a bottleneck. He also said Democrats should be smarter about using data rather than using it as a crutch, and that campaigns should make data work for them, rather than the other way around. And he pointed out that the far right has a "tremendous advantage" in delivering its ideas compared to Democrats.

"After 2020, I had a billionaire ask me what I thought would be useful going forward. My advice was to spend a billion dollars building out an ecosystem like the right to deliver information to not only our base but persuadable voters. There was an acknowledgement of the problem, but that was all," Schale recalled. "I worry that coastal Democrats don’t fully grasp just how much of a disadvantage we face on the news consumption front—especially podcasts and social media—and that to solve it, we need a donor or two willing to invest significant capital."

The Floridian said Democrats' pattern of gradually losing its base should be particularly alarming to party leaders. He noted that in the three predominantly Hispanic counties of Miami-Dade, Hendry and Osceola, Democrats went from having a 324,000-vote margin in 2016 to President-elect Donald Trump winning those counties by a total of 133,000 votes just eight years later.

"The truth is we got here because our brand sucks. We tend to put voters in different buckets—black, Hispanic, young, gay, etc.—and treat these groups like they are more progressive than they really are, and somehow unique from each other," he wrote. "At the same time, we’ve made decisions to stop talking to large chunks of the electorate."

Click here to read Schale's full essay in the Bulwark.

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'Posturing': Trump’s labor secretary pick only backed pro-worker bills 10% of the time

Former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.), who President-elect Donald Trump picked to head the U.S. Department of Labor, has been viewed by Democrats as one of his least offensive Cabinet appointments. But her reportedly pro-labor record is being scrutinized in a new report.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O'Brien has endorsed Trump's nomination of the Oregon Republican (the daughter of a Teamsters member). More Perfect Union founder Faiz Shakir — who was Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) presidential campaign manager in 2020 — called her a "pro-labor pick" in an interview with MSNBC's Alex Wagner. But according to a Wednesday article by the American Prospect's Hassan Ali Kanu, Chavez-DeRemer's supposedly pro-worker bona fides don't hold up.

Chavez-DeRemer is known for being one of the few Republican sponsors of the PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act, which makes it easier for workers to organize unions in the workplace. However, Kanu noted that Trump's labor secretary-designate didn't add her name to the list of cosponsors until July, approximately four months after its two other House Republican supporters — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) — backed it, and well after its failure to pass the House was assured. She notably declined to co-sponsor the bill in 2023.

University of Calfornia-Los Angeles labor historian Trevor Griffey told the Prospect that Chavez-DeRemer's support of the PRO Act could be more accurately described as "posturing in a swing district." He added that "political support for the PRO Act or any other labor rights should be measured by votes and not declarations of intent."

Kanu found that the one-term lawmaker (she lost to Democrat Janelle Bynum in November) only supported pro-worker legislation 10% of the time according to her AFL-CIO scorecard. While that's slightly higher than the Republican average of 6%, the average House Democrat's score is 99%.

"She voted in favor of a bill that would undermine the unemployment insurance program, for example, including by penalizing recipients for inadvertent errors; and for legislation that would loosen regulation of health benefits and allow employers to offer plans that aren’t backed by adequate reserves," Kanu wrote. "Chavez-DeRemer has also voted against one of the biggest labor priorities of the past decade—a 'joint employer' rule to restrict companies’ ability to effectively outsource certain legal, pay, and benefits obligations to third parties, like contractors and franchisees."

According to the Prospect, Chavez-DeRemer has also "staked out a slate of now-standard Republican positions" that make her more palatable to Trump. This includes "skirting the question" when the Oregonian asked her directly in 2022 if she believed President Joe Biden was the true winner of the 2020 election. In her 2022 bid for Congress, Chavez-DeRemer also ran on red meat "culture war" issues popular with the GOP base, like opposition to transgender rights and climate change denial.

Click here to read Kanu's full report in the American Prospect.

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'Acted like the rules didn’t apply': Hegseth’s coworkers say he often showed up drunk on set

Fox News personality Pete Hegseth — who President-elect Donald Trump has nominated to lead the Department of Defense — was known for showing up to work with alcohol on his breath and dealing with hangovers, according to some of his coworkers.

NBC News reported Tuesday evening that 10 people who have worked with Hegseth are now speaking out about the potential new defense secretary's propensity for heavy drinking, and his pattern of showing up to work intoxicated. Two of Hegseth's coworkers on the set of Fox & Friends Weekend — which begins at 6 AM — recalled how he would reek of alcohol and complain about having hangovers. He also reportedly smelled like alcohol and talked about being hung over as recently as this fall, according to one of NBC's sources.

"He’s such a charming guy, but he just acted like the rules didn’t apply to him," one former coworker said of Hegseth.

As the top civilian overseeing the U.S. military (next to the commander-in-chief), a defense secretary is expected to be on the clock 24 hours a day to respond to unfolding crises around the world. NBC noted that current Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was awakened by a 3 AM phone call alerting him about a Chinese spy balloon flying over the United States. He was also expected to closely follow Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel as it unfolded in the early morning hours.

One former Fox employee said Hegseth's alcohol problem "should be disqualifying," adding that he "should not be secretary of defense." Another one said: "For the sake of national security, I really hope he has stopped drinking."

And according to one current and two former employees of the network, Hegseth would often need someone to "babysit" him and make sure he arrived to the set on time. One of his former colleagues told NBC: "We’d have to call him to make sure he didn’t oversleep because we knew he’d be out partying the night before."

"Morning TV is stressful, and more times than not Pete made it even more stressful," another remarked.

As the New Yorker's Jane Meyer reported, Hegseth was also known for abusing alcohol at his former job, when he was president of the Koch-funded group Concerned Veterans for America. In 2014, he took several coworkers to a Louisiana strip club and reportedly became so inebriated that his coworkers had to drag him off the stage when he tried to dance with the strippers. In 2015, during a trip to Cuyahoga County, Ohio, he reportedly got drunk and chanted "kill all Muslims" at a Sheraton Hotel bar.

Former Fox News contributor and Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky also referenced Hegseth's alleged drinking to excess during a November interview on CNN. She made the comment while discussing a police report that emerged in which a woman at a Republican conference in 2017 accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her.

"Listen, I worked with Pete Hegseth at Fox and, let me tell you something, Pete Hegseth has issues above and beyond this that need to be examined," Roginsky said, "because Pete Hegseth has a problem where he goes out and gets drunk, and that's also not something that we need necessarily need in our Department of Defense, and the person leading our military.

Click here to read NBC's report in its entirety.

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'Quickly dismantle America': Russian state TV hosts 'thrilled' about these 2 Trump picks

Russian state-owned broadcast channels have been bullish on President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet. But hosts on one channel are particularly enthusiastic about two appointees. And they're specifically excited because they believe the Cabinet will quickly bring about the destabilization of the United States.

In a segment posted to YouTube by Russian Media Monitor (a channel created by Daily Beast columnist Julia Davis) Russia-1 anchor Vladimir Solovyov recently heaped praise on Kash Patel, who Trump has nominated to be the next FBI director. Solovyov said that he "really really like[s]" most of Trump's nominees, though he lamented that the Senate "will not let them in." Davis noted that Solovyov and the rest of the panel were "thrilled" about the incoming administration given his Cabinet appointees.

"And the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah," Solovyov said. "What an excellent team is coming along with Trump! Not with respect to Ukraine, but as far as everything else goes, if they are allowed to get in, they will quickly dismantle America, brick by brick."

"Trump's nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel, is simply on fire," Solvyov continued, before playing a clip of Patel describing how he would shut down the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington, D.C. and turn it into a "museum of the Deep State" while scattering its 7,000 employees across the U.S.

"He's a beaut! He is very, very good!" Solovyov added.

Another panelist — professor Andrey Sidorov, who is the Dean of the School of World Politics at Moscow State University — was complimentary of both Patel and Secretary of Defense-designate Pete Hegseth, saying that the latter was in the same vein as Patel. Sidorov said he was "fully in support" of Patel leading the FBI, and exclaimed that "another one like him will head the Defense Department."

Aside from Patel and Hegseth, other Trump Cabinet picks have also received high marks from Russian state media hosts. Director of National Intelligence-designate Tulsi Gabbard has been praised for her friendliness to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Keith Kellogg, who Trump picked to be special envoy for Ukraine, reportedly got a "lukewarm reaction" from Moscow.

Watch the video of the panel below, or by clicking this link (comments about Patel and Hegseth start at around the 6:15 mark).

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GOP already 'chomping at the bit' to cut Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare: analysis

Republicans are already revealing their eagerness to cut earned benefits for millions of Americans, if one House Republican is to be believed.

In a recent interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, Rep. Richard McCormick (R-Ga.) said that he aims to convince his fellow lawmakers that "hard decisions" need to be made about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid if his party is to succeed in its goal of making sweeping budget cuts.

"75 percent of the budget is nondiscretionary," McCormick said, referencing the three programs that provide income and health insurance to retirees, low-income Americans and the disabled. "There’s hundreds of billions of dollars to be saved and we know how to do it. We just have to have the stomach to actually take those challenges on."

New Republic writer Hafiz Rashid highlighted McCormick's interview to make the point that Republicans are "chomping at the bit at some of their favorite targets" in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's victory. And he noted that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has also mentioned the possibility of making cuts to those three programs in order to fatten the Pentagon budget, along with "the infamous conservative manifesto Project 2025."

"While McCormick pledges to talk to the Democrats about such cuts, the GOP is unlikely to get much traction with the opposing party, especially since Republicans will have a razor-thin majority in the House where a single vote or two could tank their legislative agenda.," Rashid wrote. "Even if the GOP manages to win over a couple of Democrats, any plans to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid will get pushback from powerful organizations such as the AARP. Older voters who rely on the programs also make up the base of the Republican Party, and politicians from both parties should be wary of provoking them."

Notably, McCormick didn't mention one of his party's more costly goals: Extending Trump's 2017 tax cut package that overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the rich. Politico estimated that an extension would require roughly $4.6 trillion over 10 years, which even some Republicans were worried about.

Watch the video of McCormick's comments below, or by clicking this link.

— (@)

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'Not going to happen': Billionaire CEO shreds Trump’s biggest argument in favor of tariffs

Timothy Boyle – the billionaire CEO of publicly traded apparel giant Columbia Sportswear — thinks the central argument President-elect Donald Trump is making in favor of new tariffs is bogus.

Trump has proposed tariffs of 25 percent on goods imported from Canada and Mexico, and 10 percent on Chinese imports. In October, Trump told Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait that he expected there to be a boom in U.S. manufacturing as companies considered their business strategy in the wake of significant new tariffs. But Boyle said Trump lacks a basic understanding of how corporations operate on a global scale.

In a Tuesday interview with CNN, Boyle explained that his company is already one of the "largest duty payers and tariff payers in the United States," and that a potential new tariff imposed by the incoming Trump administration would only harm his customers, rather than foreign countries exporting goods.

"We're used to dealing with significant tariffs. They have not driven production into the U.S., even though some of the tariffs are as high as nearly 40 percent," he said. "So we don't think there's going to be any movement to be building products that we sell in the U.S. There will just be higher prices for consumers."

Boyle pointed out that over the last 50 years, "nearly 100 percent" of apparel and footwear manufacturing has moved to Asia. He said this is partly due to lower labor costs, but also because the technology involved in processing textile fabrics, and the "art of tailoring" is also based in Asian countries.

"So to be moving products and production back here in the U.S., is not going to happen," Boyle said, noting that the profit margins his company and others aim for don't allow him to "eat" the cost of new tariffs. "Today, consumers are paying the tariffs. and when they buy products that are made offshore, they're they're paying significant tariffs, which are included in the products... The costs are going to be passed on to the consumer just the way they are today."

Even though Boyle runs a global brand, American small business owners share similar concerns about Trump's tariffs. Jacob Rheuban, who is the president of Prevelo Bikes, recently told AlterNet that he also imports a lot of his raw materials like tires and brakes from Asia. He added that it will be difficult for him to keep prices where they are if he suddenly has to pay more to source parts for his company's products.

Watch the video of Boyle's interview below, or by clicking this link.

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'Sheer fantasy': Wall Street doesn’t think Trump will accomplish any of his major goals

Despite winning the presidential election and having Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress, President-elect Donald Trump may not achieve even a fraction of what he campaigned on, according to a new survey.

The Daily Beast reported that investors' skepticism of Trump's second term is particularly high, given how Wall Street responded to a recent Goldman Sachs survey. Respondents were particularly bearish on Trump's plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and make across-the-board budget cuts.

Only 6% of those surveyed told Goldman Sachs that they view immigration numbers will be a net negative under Trump, meaning that the other 94% are convinced that the United States will continue letting in more people than they deport. And despite billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy setting a goal of recommending $2 trillion in federal spending, 90% of respondents predicted that Trump wouldn't be able to cut more than $400 billion.

“This goal — which amounts to 31 percent of annual US spending, and 7 percent of US GDP — is sheer fantasy,” Harvard economist Jeffrey Frankel wrote in November. “Say they go fully draconian — starting by abolishing the Department of Education altogether, as Trump has pledged to do. This would reduce total spending by 4 percent.”

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that they planned to focus their efforts on "regulatory rescissions" and "administrative reductions." But because their "Department of Government Efficiency" isn't an actual federal agency authorized by Congress, it has no binding authority to actually make the deep cuts Musk and Ramaswamy are proposing.

Additionally, the legal argument the two made that supposedly gives them authority to significantly reduce federal budgets may not hold water if tested in the courts, according to University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley. They argued that recent Supreme Court decisions like Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (which abolished the "Chevron Doctrine" that previously guided the regulatory process) and the 2022 West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency decision (in which the Court curbed the federal government's authority to regulate greenhouse gases) paved the way for them to bulldoze the administrative state, but other legal experts aren't as convinced.

“Nothing changed with respect to their authority to consider different approaches to regulating,” Bagley told the Hill last month. “If what they’re saying is agencies can now adopt different regulations without going through the administrative process, because they think they’ve got some clincher of a legal argument, I think they’re going to find out very quickly that the courts are not likely to be sympathetic with cutting procedural corners.”

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'Literally holding our breath': J6 rioters having 'anxiety' over Trump 'silence' on pardons

Scores of participants in the January 6, 2021 siege on the U.S. Capitol are hoping that President-elect Donald Trump will follow through on his campaign promise to pardon them. Others are now no longer sure they can trust him.

Politico legal correspondent Kyle Cheney reported Saturday that there is a heated debate among January 6 defendants over whether the incoming administration will issue blanket pardons, or only pardon a certain subset of defendants while leaving others out to dry. Trump supporter Brandon Straka — who was sentenced to three months of home confinement for his role in the insurrection — pushed for Trump to offer "a word of reassurance" that Capitol rioters could count on the president-elect to free them.

“The silence on the issue just exacerbates the victims’ anxiety," Straka said, notably using the word "victims" to describe people who broke past multiple police lines and violently breached the Capitol while Congress attempted to certify the 2020 election. "Hopefully some kind of messaging comes soon.”

Previously, Trump was assumed to pardon the nearly 1,500 total defendants that Attorney General Merrick Garland's Department of Justice prosecuted since the attack. This reportedly included those held at the Washington, D.C. jail who served time for assaulting police officers. But Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt is now saying that the president-elect will evaluate January 6-related pardons on a "case-by-case basis."

“It is just a phrase. ‘Case by case,’ It isn’t a policy, or a strategy, or anything,” MAGA activist Suzzanne Monk wrote on X last week. “It is a catch phrase the media is using to push the ‘only some will be pardoned’ narrative.”

Cheney also reported that January 6 participants are unsure about whether they trust Attorney General-designate Pam Bondi to be open to pardons of rioters. She has so far been quiet about her plans for January 6 defendants, whereas previous Attorney General-designate Matt Gaetz — who pulled out of the confirmation process just eight days after he was nominated — was more vocal in his support for jailed insurrectionists.

Kari Hoffman, whose husband, Luke is in jail for what she calls "bogus assault charges," said she viewed Trump as a "smart man" who she hoped would pardon her husband. But she told Politico that the new "case-by-case" approach makes her nervous that he may remain behind bars.

“We are literally holding our breath over here, hoping that my husband is under this pardon,” Hoffman told Cheney.

Some defendants have adjusted their legal strategy in hopes that Trump would keep his word to pardon them. After the election, an attorney representing defendant Christopher Carnell — who was 18 when he entered the Capitol on January 6 — asked U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell to postpone proceedings in her client's case until more details emerged on Trump's presumed pardons.

"The Court has asked the parties to present status arguments on November 8, 2024, but as of today, Mr. Carnell is now awaiting further information from the Office of the President-elect regarding the timing and expected scope of clemency actions relevant to his case," read a filing by attorney Marina Medvin.

Earlier this week, Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) posted calls for Trump to issue blanket pardons on their respective X accounts. Greene referred to participants in the riot attempting to violently overturn election results as "patriotic Americans" while Biggs called them "political prisoners."

Click here to read Politico's article in full.

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Dems 'pushing aggressively' to replace aging leaders with 'combative' reps on key committees

Some House Democrats are eager to see a changing of the guard on several major communities when the 119th Congress gavels into session on January 3, 2025 in order to better check President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration.

That's according to the New York Times, which reported Saturday that the high-profile House Judiciary Committee could potentially see a shakeup next January. Currently, 77 year-old Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) is poised to be ranking member of the committee after previously serving as its chairman after the 2018 midterm elections. But the Times reports that some Democrats are now "pushing aggressively" for 61 year-old Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) to challenge Nadler for the role, viewing him as "more combative" and better suited for the job.

Nadler is not expected to cede his position atop the powerful committee without a fight, though Raskin has noticeably remained silent about whether he plans to ask his Democratic colleagues to vote for him to replace Nadler. The former Judiciary Committee chair said that as a native New Yorker, he's "stood up to Donald Trump my entire career."

"When he became president, I led the Judiciary Committee’s efforts to hold him accountable for his various abuses of power, culminating in two historic impeachments," Nadler wrote in a letter to colleagues announcing his intent to seek another term as the top Democrat on the committee.

Raskin, however, became a darling of progressives due to his willingness to vociferously challenge Republicans as the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. The Times reported that House Democrats view the Maryland lawmaker as "more aggressive, articulate and shrewd than Mr. Nadler when it comes to taking on the former and future president," and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the former Speaker of the House, is apparently one of the Democrats in Raskin's corner.

The House Judiciary Committee is seen as the epicenter of anti-Trump opposition in the upcoming meeting of Congress, given its oversight over the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Trump's stated plans to use the DOJ as a tool to persecute his political opponents. Democrats eager to replace Nadler reportedly complain that he "rarely veers from talking points" while Raskin is perceived as a "sharp-tongued debater more adept at spontaneous sparring."

Other committees that could see intraparty contests for leadership positions next year include the House Committee on Natural Resources, where Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) could challenge longtime Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) to be the next ranking member. and House Agriculture Committee ranking member David Scott (D-Ga.) may also have to defend his position from Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.)

Click here to read the Times' report in its entirety (subscription required).

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'Act quickly': Expert says there’s still time for Congress to curb Trump’s tariff powers

President-elect Donald Trump has made it clear that he plans to impose broad tariffs on imports from some of the United States' largest trade partners. But one expert says Congress has the ability to limit his ability to raise import duties before the new Congress is sworn in on January 3.

In a recent op-ed for the Hill, Inu Manak — a fellow for trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations — argued that Trump's proposed 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China would be harmful for both American consumers and businesses. She pointed out that the American car manufacturing industry in particular would be one of the hardest hit sectors of the economy given how automakers depend on parts imported from Canada and Mexico that can cross international boundaries multiple times before a vehicle hits the showroom.

"Imposing a tariff on these products means charging a tax every single time a part crosses the border," Manak wrote. "That would quickly add up."

Manak also observed that the new tariff proposals fly in the face of the U.S., Mexico and Canada (USMCA) agreement that Trump brokered during his first term in office, which he called "the largest, most significant, modern, and balanced trade agreement in history." She opined that Trump going back on the USMCA's provisions can make the U.S. seem like an unreliable trade partner, discouraging other countries from doing business with the United States.

"[Trump] is either now claiming that he negotiated a bad deal, or that our trading partners cannot be assured of the commitments the U.S. makes in international agreements," she wrote. "All this raises the question of why any trading partner would ever bother to negotiate a trade accord with the U.S. ever again."

Democrats still hold a Senate majority during Congress' lame duck session, which ends in early January. Manak called for lawmakers to pass the Prevent Tariff Abuse Act, authored by Reps. Susan DelBene (D-Wash.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.), which curtails the president's ability to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs. But she added that Congress could pass even bolder action if they wish.

"That is a good start, but there’s still more that Congress can do," Manak wrote. "Trade analysts have laid out a much broader list of tariff authorities that could be abused by Trump and Congress should act quickly to repeal or reform them."

Click here to read Manak's op-ed in the Hill.

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'Extraordinary situation': How Musk could personally reap billions from 'efficiency' panel

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — the world's richest man with more than $320 billion in net worth — is openly planning an effort to gut federal budgets for virtually every agency. But he also stands to personally profit to the tune of potentially billions of dollars if some of those proposed cuts come to fruition, according to the Guardian.

The publication reported Saturday that Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency" (which has no binding budgetary authority as it hasn't been formally authorized by Congress) may serve as a vehicle to his companies getting more government contracts if budget cuts result in some services being privatized. Aside from his electric vehicle and space exploration companies, this could also include his satellite-powered internet service company, Starlink.

One major part of President Joe Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) is the approximately $42.5 billion in investments for expanding rural broadband internet access. Guardian reporter George Chidi pointed out that Musk has been a longtime critic of the Biden administration's rollout of that money due to Starlink being "shut out" of those funds due to the government deeming it "too slow to qualify." He further noted: If Musk recommends cuts to government spending on rural fiber optic broadband – as he has repeatedly suggested – it directly increases the value of Starlink’s satellite internet services."

“We have never had a situation where the leading shareholder of a communications company has both a position – both in terms of influencing the president, but also having an assignment to drive efficiency in government – with so many government contracts,” telecommunications industry analyst Blair Levin told the Guardian. “That is an extraordinary situation. That is unprecedented.”

Chidi explained that large telecom companies like AT&T and Comcast/Xfinity got the bulk of the government contracts for rural broadband internet access, which set a benchmark of 100 megabits per second for download speed, 20 megabits per second for upload speed and periods of latency limited to just 100 milliseconds. Starlink currently fails to meet this benchmark, with median download speed coming in at less than 65 megabits per second as of late 2023.

In a late November op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, both Musk and billionaire pharmaceuticals investor Vivek Ramaswamy outlined their plans to fire thousands of government workers and drastically reduce federal budgets by seeking out "regulatory rescissions" and "administrative reductions." They also called for the repeal of the1974 Impoundment Control Act, which prevents presidents from withholding federal funding already appropriated by Congress — like, for instance, the BIL money for broadband internet access. Levin told Chidi that this "would tie the program in legal knots as lawsuits abound," which she further argued was "the point."

“While states and others could file legal actions to stop such a pause, we think most courts would be reluctant to enjoin or otherwise stop the administration from reconsidering some elements of the program," she said. "Even actions of dubious legality can benefit Starlink through delay or through litigation.”

Click here to read the Guardian's report in full.

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'Quickly rot from within': Expert reveals 3 traits the US shares with declining empires

The United States is currently displaying several characteristics that have historically been seen by empires in decline, according to one social scientist.

Peter Turchin is one of the pioneers of "cliodynamics," which is the field of study concerning statistical analysis of historical dynamics of societies around the world. In a recent essay for the Guardian, Turchin wrote that he and his fellow researchers have noticed the U.S. having three key traits in common with past global hegemons just before a period of decline. Those three factors are "popular immiseration, elite overproduction and state breakdown."

Turchin explained that "popular immiseration" describes a breakdown of the social contract between workers, the private sector and the public sector, which he said began after the Republican assault in the New Deal that happened around the time former President Ronald Reagan took power. He noted that as "the power of unions was undermined," taxes on the richest Americans were "cut back," which was followed by stagnating wages and a decline in life expectancy.

"With the incomes of workers effectively stuck, the fruits of economic growth were reaped by the elites instead. A perverse 'wealth pump' came into being, siphoning money from the poor and channelling it to the rich," he wrote. "In many ways, the last four decades call to mind what happened in the United States between 1870 and 1900 – the time of railroad fortunes and robber barons. If the postwar period was a golden age of broad-based prosperity, after 1980 we could be said to have entered a Second Gilded Age."

The second trait, which Turchin called "elite overproduction," involves a growing population of the "uber-rich," (which he defined as "those with fortunes greater than $10 million") and their influence in the public sphere. He noted that when adjusting for inflation, this population grew by tenfold over the last four decades. This has led to rich elites either running for office, like President-elect Donald Trump, or funding candidates for office, like many billionaires have done in recent cycles. He also pointed out that "counter-elites" will emerge who oppose the existing political establishment.

"The more members of this elite class there are, the more aspirants for political power a society contains," he wrote. "By the 2010s the social pyramid in the US had grown exceptionally top-heavy: there were too many wannabe leaders and moguls competing for a fixed number of positions in the upper echelons of politics and business."

"As battles between the ruling elites and counter-elites heat up, the norms governing public discourse unravel and trust in institutions declines," he continued. "The result is a loss of civic cohesiveness and sense of national cooperation – without which states quickly rot from within."

Finally, Turchin opined hat "state breakdown" will inevitably follow popular immiseration and elite overproduction. He argued that Democrats' loss in the November election "represents one battle in an ongoing revolutionary war," but that the goal of the new order is "far from assured" given that "opponents are pretty well entrenched in the bureaucracy and can effectively resist change."

"Popular discontent in the US has been building up for more than four decades. Many years of real prosperity would be needed to persuade the public that the country is back on the right track," he wrote. "So, for now, we can expect a lasting age of discord. Let’s hope that it won’t spill over into a hot civil war."

Click here to read Turchin's full essay in the Guardian.

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'We can never go back': Anti-Trump Republican says reforming GOP now 'off the table'

In the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's campaign, no group may be more politically homeless than anti-Trump Republicans.

A Saturday report in Politico detailed how some of the most prominent Republicans who opposed Trump during the 2024 election are considering the future of their party as Trump recasts it in his image. This past election cycle not only returned Trump to power in spite of opposition from lifelong Republicans like former Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), but also proved to be the one in which Trump's family took over the GOP's national campaign apparatus with his daughter-in-law Lara elected as its co-chair.

Now, some Republicans are wondering whether there's room for them in the GOP at all given the MAGA-led takeover of the party. Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who was elected in the 2010 Tea Party wave and ousted two years later, says any hope of reforming the Republican Party to go back to traditional conservative philosophy is now "off the table."

“It’s down to two options,” Walsh told Politico. “Productively throw rocks at the administration — kind of be like a group in exile and from a distance do what we can to damage MAGA, knowing we can never go back — or become Democrats.”

Even though she endorsed Trump in the general election, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has since come out against some of Trump's more controversial Cabinet picks like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the potential new Health and Human Services secretary and Director of National Intelligence-designate Tulsi Gabbard. Haley — a foreign policy hawk — accused Gabbard in a recent episode of her radio show of being a "Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathizer." And she called RFK Jr. a "liberal Democrat" with "no background in healthcare."

Former Vice President Mike Pence has also come out against Kennedy due to his position on abortion. Pence called RFK Jr.'s nomination to lead U.S. health agencies "deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have supported the Republican Party and our nominees for decades." Now, these Republicans are putting their hopes in the hands of more moderate members of the Senate Republican conference to put the kibosh on Trump's most extreme nominees. This includes Senators like Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

“That is the only way for Trump to be checked … the sort of in-group moderates, the people who are members of the Republican Party who won’t give Trump carte blanche and who will push back against the most damaging things,” Sarah Longwell, publisher of anti-Trump conservative website The Bulwark, told Politico. “You’re going to need people in the Republican Party to not cave completely to Trump.”

Click here to read Politico's article in full.

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'I cannot stay silent': Pete Hegseth’s mother condemns his 'abusive behavior' against women

Fox News personality Pete Hegseth has a new problem complicating his goal of being confirmed to lead the United States military next year: His own mother.

The New York Times recently reported on new details that emerged from the aftermath of Hegseth's divorce from his former wife, Samantha, which took 10 months to finalize between 2017 and 2018. In 2016, Hegseth had an affair with Jennfier Rauchet, who was one of his coworkers at Fox News. The affair resulted in the two having a child out of wedlock. Hegseth married Rauchet in 2019.

Three months before his divorce from Samantha was finalized, Hegseth's mother, Penelope, wrote him a lengthy email in which she confronted him about how he treated his ex-wife and other women. She insisted that Samantha was "a good mother and a good person," and that Hegseth's arguments that his mother had taken the side of Samantha were "bunk."

"We are on the side of good and that is not you," she wrote, with the Times noted that she didn't clarified who included "we" besides herself.

"It’s time for someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out, especially against women,” Penelope Hegseth wrote. “We still love you, but we are broken by your behavior and lack of character.”

Hegseth described her son's behavior as "dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing [and] belittling." She added that if her message “damages our relationship further,” she added, “so be it.” And she told him to not bother replying, expecting him to "twist and abuse everything I say anyway."

The potential new defense secretary's alleged problems with women go beyond just his own family. In 2017, he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a conservative conference. Democratic strategist and Fox News contributor Julie Roginsky reminded CNN viewers that Hegseth once wrote an article arguing that women can't claim rape if they were unconscious.

Click here to read the Times' report in full.

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'Not just Trump': Columnist argues president-elect’s Cabinet has a 'problem with dogs'

President-elect Donald Trump broke with the tradition of not having a White House dog during his first administration, and will likely continue bucking that tradition in his second term. And he reportedly disliked then-Vice President Mike Pence's pets living in the official residence. But those are the most vanilla dog-related fact of the incoming Trump administration in comparison to his Cabinet, according to one columnist.

In her latest essay for the Daily Beast, columnist Jill Twiss delved into the multiple disturbing stories about several of Trump's Cabinet appointees that pertain to dogs, pointing out that four high-profile nominees each have scandals involving dogs. She asked readers: "What the f— does the Trump administration have against dogs?!"

"[I]t’s not just Trump," she wrote. "There’s a disturbing trend in his senior political appointees. And before they are confirmed, we need to figure out exactly what the f— is going on."

South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem, who Trump tapped to be the next Homeland Security secretary, has the most notorious dog story. In her memoir released earlier this year, she recalled how she shot her dog, Cricket, to death after the family pet scared away birds she was trying to hunt, and later attacking a group of chickens. Twiss observed that "Cricket was killed because she was bad at hunting birds and also really good at hunting birds."

Twiss also reminded readers that Department of Health and Human Services secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may or may not have eaten a dog on camera. One viral photo of the far-right conspiracy theorist — who once suggested Covid-19 was engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jewish and Chinese people — showed him munching on a carcass that a veterinarian said was a dog's (due to the skeletal structure). RFK Jr. maintains it was a goat.

The columnist then mentioned how Dr. Mehmet Oz, who was nominated to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was fined for killing hundreds of dogs while conducting research at Columbia University. A whistleblower recalled how Oz routinely killed dogs "with syringes of expired drugs inserted in their hearts without any sedation."

As for Attorney General-designate Pam Bondi, Twiss acknowledged that her dog story didn't involve killing or eating one, but stealing one. Before she was Florida's attorney general, Bondi reportedly stole a family's St. Bernard dog named Tank, who was displaced during Hurricane Katrina, and renamed him Noah. When the family discovered Tank's whereabouts and asked for his return, Bondi refused. They sued and a court eventually made Bondi give Tank back to his family. Twiss opined naming the dog Noah was "not a crime, but it is an objectively worse name than Tank."

Click here to read Twiss' op-ed in full (subscription required).

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'Biggest challenge': Even Republicans are nervous about Trump’s new $4.6 trillion tax cut

Despite Republicans keeping the House of Representatives and flipping control of the Senate, some are acknowledging that extending President-elect Donald Trump's tax cuts in 2025 will be a tall order.

In a recent Politico article, several Republican members of Congress expressed worry that renewing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TJCA) of 2017 could be difficult given its $4.6 trillion price tag. While the initial legislation came with an estimated cost of $1.5 trillion over 10 years, Politico reported that extending the approximately 40 provisions in the law would come in at a cost of $4 trillion over that same time period, with another $600 billion in interest.

The bulk of those tax cuts overwhelmingly benefit the rich. According to CNN, an analysis from July found that if the TJCA was extended next year, the richest 5% of taxpayers would reap almost half the benefits. Those making $450,000 and up would see their incomes increase by 3.2%, while the richest 1% — who make $1 million a year or more – would get an average tax cut of nearly $70,000. And the top 0.1% richest Americans would see a whopping $280,000 average reduction in their own taxes.

Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee (which oversees tax-related matters) was skeptical that the GOP would be able to easily pass the new tax cuts without a big fight even among members of his own party.

"That’s going to be the biggest challenge for the [House Republican] conference," he said.

Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), who chairs the House Budget Committee, is also wary of any new tax cuts that will add to the federal deficit. In order to make the new round of tax cuts deficit-neutral, Arrington is pondering pairing them with cuts to Medicaid (the health insurance program for the poorest Americans), repealing green energy tax breaks and increasing taxes on corporate profits booked overseas that get repatriated. But House Ways and Means chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) told Politico he was less concerned about paying for a new round of tax cuts.

"“Look at history — were the Bush tax cuts paid for?” He said.

Click here to read Politico's article in full.

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